Crosby could face some competition during camp

Mar. 20, 2013

Green Bay Packers kicker Mason Crosby. File/Press-Gazette Media

Written by

Rob Demovsky

PHOENIX — For the first time since his rookie season, Packers kicker Mason Crosby probably will have some competition in training camp.

Crosby beat out incumbent Dave Rayner in the summer of 2007, and the Packers haven’t signed another kicker since then. That could change with Crosby coming off a season in which he converted just 63.6 percent of his field goals (21-of-33 in the regular season).

It was by far his worst year.

“I think competition’s good, definitely,” Packers coach Mike McCarthy said. “I don’t think you can look past any past performance throughout your team and think that competition’s (not) going to help regardless of how they performed the year before. I mean, I think that’s definitely something that we’ll look at.”

Crosby went through a midseason slump in which he missed 12 of 24 field goals and had a miss in eight straight games in which he attempted a kick.

“And the other part of it, Mason’s in town and we feel good about the plan and all the things that we’ve talked about,” McCarthy said. “He’s an experienced kicker and those guys make subtle adjustments. Sometimes it’s too much and if there’s a common theme of our evaluation with our football team, it falls into the category of too much.”